When The Dixie Chicks became country music pariahs for their criticism of GW Bush in 2003, Merle was one of the few country music stars to come to thier defense.
http://archives.nodepression.com/... Haggard:
It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching.
After the success of "Okie From Muskogee", Merle wanted to release as a single a song he wrote about an interracial romance, "Irma Jackson". His record company didn't want to have anything to do with it; remember this was 1969.
"Irma Jackson"
I'd love to shout my feelin's from a mountain high
Tell the world I love her and I will till I die
There's no way the world will understand that love is colour blind
That's why Irma Jackson can't be mine.
His song "Mama Tried" is a mostly true recounting of his own life, he served time In San Quentin, though not "life without parole".
"Okie From Muskogee"
Only Merle could get away with:
"Leather boots are still in style for many footwear,
Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen"....
Merle now lives in Northern California and has come to be an environmentalist of sorts.
About W. Bush:
The right that the President has given to cut down these big trees out here on the West Coast needs to be brought up,” he says. “He’s also given the right to drill for oil off the coast of California. Well, it’s obvious that he doesn’t give a shit about California. That happens to be where I live.
“I don’t understand how we can be so stupid to [not] realize that we have to have the lungs of the earth, the earth has to breathe. And if we do away with the trees…We have to quit burning things. We have the mentality of a firecracker, you know? We’re still in the woods lighting fires.
”
The "Okie From Muscogee" now sees the marijuana laws as ridiculous.
Haggard said he had started smoking marijuana when he was 41 years old.
My views on marijuana have totally changed. I think we were brainwashed and I think anybody that doesn’t know that needs to get up and read and look around, get their own information. It’s a cooperative government project to make us think marijuana should be outlawed.
So here's to you, Merle, a shitkicker with soul. And a hell of an artist.
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